Autonomi Launchpad for Dummies – Windows Version
(These instructions pertain to Launchpad v0.3.14, which will install Autonomi v0.111.1 on your PC. If future versions differ, clarifications will be added.)
Running Launchpad on one machine only
The process of running Launchpad on only one PC on your home network is remarkably straightforward – kudos to the developers. But if a mistake can be made in endeavors like this, I’ll probably make it. So, below is kind of a diary of my steps and missteps that finally resulted in me becoming a productive Node Runner.
Downloading
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If you have a running instance of Launchpad on your computer, exit out of it then delete the program icon if it is located on your Desktop.
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Download Node Launchpad for Windows (currently v0.3.14) from autonomi.com/downloads.
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After the file has finished downloading, open the Downloads folder, then right-click on the filename of the downloaded program. Choose Extract All. This will create a new folder in your Downloads folder with the same name as the downloaded zip file, except it will be a regular folder.
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Double-click on the new folder to bring up the contents, then right-click on the filename (probably ‘node-launchpad.exe’). Select Copy, then minimize this window.
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Right-click on the Desktop and choose Paste. This will put a copy of the Node Launchpad program on the Desktop where it will be easily accessible.
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Right-click on node-launchpad.exe and choose Properties. Click on the Compatibility tab at top and put a checkmark in the “Run this program as an Administrator” box. Click OK.
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Close all programs and reboot your PC.
Setup
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After your PC has rebooted, double- click on node-launchpad.exe.
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When the “Windows has protected your PC” window comes up select More info then “Run anyway”.
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After a few seconds a blue (S) Status screen will appear. Hitting the letter “O” on the keyboard will bring up the (O) Options screen. You can toggle back and forth between S and O.
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You can probably just leave all the defaults as they are if you are just running Launchpad on one machine but if you have a faster drive than the system drive, such as an NVMe, that you want the program to use for the imported files, select Control-D then choose the drive using the Down or Up Arrows on your keyboard.
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You should be able to leave the Connection Method set to Automatic.
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If you want to add your Discord name for purposes of earning rewards (not to be confused with earning Nanos), select Control-B, hit the Y key to agree to the Terms and Conditions, then enter your Discord name in the purple box (making sure your Discord name starts all the way to the left side of the box-no preceding spaces), followed by hitting the Enter key.
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Press Control-R to Reset your machine, just in case you had used a prior version of the Launchpad.
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After Reset has finished, select S to return to the Status page, then click the X in the upper -right corner to Exit the program. Close all programs then reboot your PC.
Configuration
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After your PC restarts, double-click on the node-launchpad.exe icon located on your Desktop. The blue Status screen will appear. Now you are ready to earn some Nanos by adding some nodes to your PC which will hold data downloaded from the Autonomi network.
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Start with 10 nodes at a time, as trying to initiate more will take an extremely long time. If you have a low-end system, 10 might be all you can run. 50 is the max per PC using Launchpad.
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Press Control-G, then use the Up arrow on your keyboard to change the default number of nodes from “1” to “10”, then press the Enter key.
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If the Windows Defender Firewall window comes up, check both boxes, Private and Public, then select “Allow Access”. If this happens, you will probably need to exit out of node-launchpad, close all programs then Restart your PC. After it reboots, double-click on node-launchpad.exe to restart it, then repeat Step 3, if necessary.
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After a few minutes all 10 of your nodes should be listed on the Status screen with “Running” indicated on the far right.
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If some of the nodes do not show the “Running” indicator, try pressing Control-S. You might even have to exit out of node-launchpad.exe, wait about 20 seconds, then re-launch it. All of the listed nodes should be shown as “Running” now.
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If you still have issues after trying everything above, you might need to assign a static IP address to your PC, as described in Step 1 below, or maybe even use Port Forwarding along with a firewall rule as detailed in Step 2.
Your Status screen should look something like this:
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Earning Nanos will take some time, you’ll probably only get 1 or 2 Nanos per hour running 10 nodes. Keep your PC running round the clock for maximum earnings. If your computer happens to reboot due to a power glitch at your home or if you intentionally shut it down, you will need to re-launch node-launchpad.exe when it reboots. Probably some time in the future Autonomi will include a “Launch on Startup” option so you can be confident of the program always running.
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Keep the number of nodes at 10 for a time, maybe a few days, to test whether that load is affecting other Internet programs and services you normally run on your Home Network. If some of your other applications experience sluggishness you need to press Control-G again from Launchpad and reduce the number of nodes to about 5. Conversely, if you have had clear sailing during your test period you can try increasing the number of nodes you run.
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Windows Update has been known to create issues with running programs so if you want to delay the automatic updates, refer to How to Delay Windows Updates and Tell Microsoft to Leave You Alone | PCMag. You can also delay them until a certain date within a 35-day period; that way the updates become scheduled, versus unscheduled, which make them easier to deal with.
Running Launchpad on more than one PC
If you want to run Launchpad on more than one machine you will need to complete a couple of extra configuration steps.
Extra Steps
- The first thing you need to do, after completing the steps above is to assign a static internal IP address to your PC on each computer running Launchpad. This will allow the program to know where it needs to send the Autonomi data coming through the router pipeline. The reason this step is necessary is because you cannot be sure your router will not change the IP address that DHCP assigns to your device occasionally.
a. Before starting, it will be useful to find a couple of settings in your system. Launch the Command Prompt and enter:
ipconfig /all
Your screen should look something like one of these, depending on whether your device is connected to your home network by Ethernet cable or WiFi.
b. Make a note of the IPv4 Address, Subnet Mask and Default Gateway.
c. Next, you need to find the range of IP addresses your device uses for Windows’ DHCP service, which automatically assigns an IP to each device on your local network trying to access the Internet. You want to use a static IP address outside of this range.
d. To do this you need to go into your router and find the current IPv4 Address Distribution for the DHCP pool. It might be called by another name but it should have “DHCP”, “Address Pool”, “IP Pool” or something similar in the name. Below is an example of what you should see:
e. In this case, you would want to assign an IP address outside of the range 192.168.1.60 to 192.168.1.199, maybe 192.168.1.55 (just change the last number). Make a record of this new static IP address somewhere, you don’t want to try and assign the same address to some other device in the future.
f. Now you are ready to assign a new, static IP to your PC. A couple of useful documents describing the process of assigning a static IP can be found here and here. When finished, your new IPv4 Properties should look like this, although not necessarily with the same IP and Subnet mask.
g. You can probably leave the Default gateway and both DNS servers blank, as your router should just substitute the defaults. If it balks at this though, use the Default gateway address you found by running ‘ipconfig /all’. You can also use Google’s public DNS servers of 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 if your setup insists on having these boxes filled out.
- The second step is to set up Port Forwarding in Launchpad, your router and Windows Defender Firewall.
a. In Launchpad, press the letter O to go into the Options screen. Press Control-K and change the Connection Mode to Custom Ports.
b. Next, press Control-P to set the custom Ports. Use a starting port somewhere high in the displayed range, maybe in the 40000 or 50000 blocks. Your ending port will automatically by set to the starting port number plus 49. That will give you a possible set of 50 ports to use, although you might not be using all of them (Launchpad max nodes per PC is currently 50).
c. To set up Port Forwarding in your router, please refer to these helpful sites:
Port Forwarding Help 1 Port Forwarding Help 2 Port Forwarding Help 3
Below is a diagram of one router’s Port Forwarding input boxes:
d. You can enter any descriptive Application name.
e. Next, Microsoft being Microsoft, you need to tell Windows it’s okay to allow incoming data on the ports you are using for Launchpad.
f. From the Start menu, select Settings/Network & Internet/Windows Firewall/Advanced Settings.
g. You need to Add a new Input Rule so click on Input Rules, then New Rule on the right. Select Port, then Next.
h. Leave the bullet on the TCP selection and enter the port range that was displayed in the Launchpad Port Configuration page, for example 40000-40049.
i. Click Next, then Allow the Connection. Press Next, make sure all three boxes (Domain, Private, Public) are checked then press Next.
j. Give it a descriptive name, maybe “TCP ports for Autonomi”, then click Finish.
k. Now, go back to step g., select UDP this time, and repeat the process using the same port range for UDP, possibly naming this rule “UDP ports for Autonomi”.
l. When you are finished, close all Windows Defender Firewall windows. You might want to exit out of all your programs and reboot your PC again at this point.
Results
Nuggets from ABN Snapshot
- A Google Sheets spreadsheet has been created at: Autonomi Beta Network Snapshot - Google Sheets
which allows anyone to record their Node Runner stats anonymously. Each version of the Launchpad software will have its own section of data so not only can you compare your results with other setups, you can see a progression (or digression) from one version of Autonomi to the next.
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As you can see in Figure 1, VaCrunch has installed the Launchpad on two systems; one high end and one low end. One is running 50 nodes and the other 10.
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The Hi End PC is running Win11 instead of Win10, has a much more powerful processor and 120GB of available memory versus 27GB. But they are both on the same Home Network using the same stock ISP router, Internet connection, connection method and storage type.
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You might expect the Hi End system to earn Nanos at a daily rate of at least five times the Lo End system, since it has five times as many nodes.
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This is not the case though; in the first 45 hours, the Hi End system earned 146 Nanos, .311 Nanos per GB per Day and the Lo End 51 Nanos, .544 Nanos per GB per Day. I suspect this apparent anomaly is due to some kind of “level-the-playing-field” algorithm in use, but that’s just speculation on my part.
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It is also interesting to note, as shown in Line 1, when the Hi End system was running by itself on the Home Network using the Automatic setting as opposed to Custom Ports, it earned Nanos at only about half the rate as that of the Custom-Port setup for the Hi End PC a few days later.
